Problems viewing webpages and watching videos online

Packard Bell Computer
Intel Celeron M CPU
410 @ 1.46GHz
1.47 GHz, 960 MB of RAM

Used space: 42.7 GB
Free space: 5.31 GB
Capacity: 48.0 GB

[Moderator]

Normal free space on a HDD for Windows to run properly is 15%...
At 5G you are falling below that #...
Time for some housekeeping.

Any advice on how to clear up some free space on my hard drive?  I ran the disk defragmenter but it freed up barely anything.  I have also uninstalled all the programs I don't need.  Would purchasing an external hard drive help?

[Moderator]

Eithiether that...or burn some stuff to CD/DVD's...
3 culprits that hog alot of space would be pics; movies and music.

I turned off pop-up blocker and ad blocker on my Norton Internet Antivirus and I can view webpages properly and watch videos without any problems. 

By the way, is there any way of finding out what is filling up my hard drive space?  I can't understand how I'm running so low.

Download, and install Disk Space Reporter: http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/Disc-Space-Reporter.shtml

My Norton VirusDefs folder is eating up 15.6 GB of space.  Is it possible to clear this folder without leaving my computer unprotected?

My Norton VirusDefs folder is eating up 15.6 GB of space

I find it unbelievable.
See what's inside. Maybe some "Quarantine" folder?

There are a multitude of folders that apparently include the exact virus definitions which are getting installed to my computer through the LiveUpdate.  This folder is present only for Norton 2008 and earlier versions, so it may be worth upgrading to the latest version.

How about, if we get rid of Norton and we switch to something "lighter"?

I upgraded to Norton Internet Security 2010 and now have 22.5 GB of free space.  What do you mean by something "lighter"?

Norton is a resource hog and it may cause some other issues.

Norton is a resource hog

Now that's an understatement.

Hi again everyone,

I'm bumping this topic because I received such tremendous help before.

I have passed this Packard Bell laptop on to my Mum, but it is running incredibly slow.  This is especially noticable when running Internet Explorer.

I have attached the Autoruns output.  Is there anything you can suggest to get the computer running faster?  It doesn't have to be superfast, just as long as it is reasonable to work with!

Many thanks.

I would try updating to IE9, and seeing if that works